Lt Jovenan – Grandmother would be proud
Jovenan
((Holodeck 2, Deck 2, USS Artemis))
Chop chop chop.
Jovenan felt that she might have chosen an underwhelming dish and still had difficulties making it. She had likely the easiest dish to make, a salad with a dressing, while Vitor was already far ahead of her with his hasperats and Sadar’s dish – the wonderfully sweet smell still lingered in the air – didn’t seem by any means simple despite how easy she made it look.
Maybe, if she had grown up with a talking puppet teaching how to make food, like Vitor had, she might have been less conscious about handling a sharp object that could theoretically kill her if she held a single vegetable in a wrong way.
Jovenan: We didn’t have anything like that. The most material aimed at children involved teaching them the importance of obeying the law and treating others well.
Silveira: That’s good but, not generalizing, I think we humans need that extra humor in our lives. So even in teaching, we shouldn’t take things too seriously. ::He grinned at them as he went to the boiling pot to check it.:: But that’s just me.
Jovenan smiled a bit, without lifting her eyes from the vegetables and the knife in her hand. It wasn’t like the Edo didn’t enjoy humour and other forms of joyous behaviour, they just seemed to have a different sense of what was funny. Neither of those was wrong, just different, except schadenfreude, which she couldn’t tolerate for the good of her.
Sadar: Humor isn’t considered the ideal way of conveying learning to my people, as I understand it. But it does explain the attitudes of some of my instructors at the Academy, I suppose.
Right, and some of the attitudes on the ship as well. Maybe she’d take up a humorous style of presenting scientific theories and data in the department head meetings… because that was likely the only form of lecturing she’d be allowed after that previous fiasco, if she’d even be allowed to remain on that roster. She regretted even thinking of the subject as she seemed to struggle with concentrating in the knife and the vegetables as her thoughts wandered. She chose to direct the conversation back to its tracks, and seeing Vitor turn the vegetables into tiny pieces in mere seconds, she found her subject.
Jovenan: Is the Swedish chef from whom you found interest in cooking? You’re like a professional! Where did you learn it?
Silveira: Admittedly he was influential, but I began to learn by watching my grandparents. When I was a kid I tried to mimic them, and they have different influences. My paternal grandparents have their own farm on Earth, although their main job was teaching, we spent a lot of time there and we had the chance to pick and cook our own food. My maternal grandparents on the other hand had retired and mom got their trading company. They settled in Risa and although they weren’t very fond of cooking, they do love the fish and fruits there. So they learned and eventually taught me as well. ::He shrugged and returned to the quick vegetable chopping.:: And how about you both? How did you start cooking?
Jovenan had finished with the vegetables and had cleared them from the cutting board into a bowl, after which she had laid down the knife and stopped to listen to Vitor tell of his family. It made her smile; some of the crewmembers were becoming something of a family to her and hearing them talk of their loving families made her feel like she had an extended family somewhere out there who could care of her as well. She knew how silly it was to think like that, especially considering all the differences in how other cultures viewed families, but she wanted to feel that way after all the hardships she, and they, had encountered.
Jovenan: I didn’t, really. Practically everywhere I’ve been to have had replicators, so I never needed to learn. Though, my grandmother liked to cook – not literal one, but, um, grand-mother-sister? She cooked often, as a hobby, and when I was a child and a teenager, I often watched her and even helped her sometimes, if she allowed me. ::pause, quick look around:: The setting was very different from this one, though. Somewhat more… rustic.
Jovenan stood still for a moment, looking at the wall of the back of the kitchen. She hadn’t thought of Grandmother Lianam in a long time. Lianam wasn’t different from the rest of her family, supportive even when they didn’t understand her. Now as Jovenan thought it more, maybe Lianam was different in some ways from the rest of the community as well, and even if she wasn’t, her kitchen had been something of a refuge for Jovenan when she had struggled feeling an outsider. She started to regret leaving Grandmother Lianam, especially in times when the adversities had made sure she didn’t feel any happier than before departing from the homeworld.
She realised everyone in the kitchen had fallen silent. Quickly, she turned to Sadar, who still had her story to tell them.
Sadar: Huh? Oh! Uhh... N-Necessity? ::shaky chuckle:: As you might have found out, Lieutenant, Mizarian food isn’t exactly a replicator staple, so when I left Mizabet, I had to learn. I’d tasted some alien foods before - dishes left behind from the Tercentenary Submissions - but I’d never seen a replicator before… Took me a while to get used to them.
Silveira: Interesting. It's nice to learn a bit more about both of you. I am glad you agreed to join me. Thank you.
Jovenan: I agree, thank you as well! ::to Sadar:: But really? As fun as cooking with friends is, I can’t imagine living without a replicator!
Realising that others had been continuing with their respective dishes, Jovenan resumed with the salad she was making. She mixed it, and as soon as she was finished, she recognized how quick recipe she had chosen compared to the others. Listening to Sadar’s response, she wondered if she could and should do something extra while the dressing was cooling in the fridge.
Sadar: Ah, well, Mizabet is very seclusionist. We have warp capability and such, but more than 80% of our technological advancements in the past century is the result of invaders leaving behind inconsequential or broken down machinery, and our engineers reverse-engineering them in the process of clean-up. That’s how we got warp technology too…
Jovenan nodded. She found some parallels to her own culture as well, and she made a mental memo to read more about the history of her crewmembers respective homeworlds.
Deciding she still needed to do something, she put her salad into the fridge and returned to the ingredient replicator. As Sadar had requested, she ruled out fruits and, just to be sure, berries, so she couldn’t press a juice out of them. However, she remembered seeing etajam bark on the list, so she decided to make a cool infusion from them – an iced herbal tea, if you wished, although naturally quite sweet. It wasn’t exactly what Grandmother Lianam would have made her, but she was sure her friends wouldn’t mind a drink from another part of the God’s Claims and not just her home community.
Silveira: Remember that now, as cooking partners, we need to share our secret ingredients.
Huh? Jovenan turned around, confusedly, finding that Sadar had also found the request unusual.
Sadar: Our what?
Jovenan: I, uh, don’t have any secret ingredients. I don’t really have any secrets either, I’m fully open if you want to ask something…
Silveira: Oh don’t be shy, you know what I mean, that secret ingredient we always put on our cooking that makes it just to the point.
Oh, that made some more sense. Still, Jovenan struggled with the answer for a moment. Did she have something she’d put in anything and everything? Not really, but she suspected Vitor exaggerated the “always” part anyway. Maybe something she’d like to put into more foods so that they tasted just a bit better.
Sadar: ::slight smile:: I think you’re overestimating my cooking, Lieutenant, if you think I know enough of what I’m doing to stray that far from the recipe. I’m barely starting to feel comfortable with ingredient substitution.
Jovenan: I don’t have a signature ingredient either, though I like simulias koval extract more than some other people I knew. It’s taken from the roots of a woody plant that grows in the lakes where I’m from. I put some in the dressing, though if you can taste it, I put too much of it. It’s very strong and stingy.
Silveira: Response
Sadar: Well then, what is yours?
Silveira: Response
While listening to the two of her friends talk, Jovenan poured water on the grated barks that she had put in a glass jug. She leaned against the workstation, continuously mixing the drink to get the flavour to extract from the barks to the water, as she watched the two other chefs in their work.
Sadar: ::thoughtful hum:: I’ve heard of it. Is it universally suitable, or do you have different ‘secret ingredients’ depending on the taste profile of the dish?
Silveira: Response
Jovenan: That does sound good. It’s amazing how you know how different flavours work. ::pause:: I hope I didn’t use too bland or weird tasting ingredients in my salad. Do you think we should have, like, spices on the table in case you don’t like it?
Sadar/Silveira: Response
Jovenan responded with something of a polite smile.
Jovenan: Got it. I guess I’ll take a sample to check that it tastes like it should and hope that you don’t find it too strange for you.
Sadar/Silveira: Response
She poured a little of the drink to a glass and a had a sip, and, after detecting it adequate, walked to the fridge and dipped just a small portion of a spoon to the dressing she had made. As it was not quite as bad as she had feared her novice chef level skills would deliver, she turned back to the others.
Jovenan: I think I’m ready now. Is there something I can do to help, or do I ::look around:: try to find a dining table somewhere?
Sadar/Silveira: Response
TAG/TBC
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Lieutenant Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11